Meet the Fiery Karl
Zinsmeister Former Editor-in-Chief of the American Enterprise
Institute's Magazine is Appointed President Bush's Top Domestic Advisorby Bill Berkowitz
www.dissidentvoice.org
July 11, 2006

I
can't say with absolute certainty, but I suspect that Karl Zinsmeister,
the Bush Administration's newly appointed top domestic policy advisor,
unlike his predecessor, has not been ripping off Target, Hecht or any
other DC-area department store. I can only assume that his credit card
record is clean, and that this vetting process was more thorough than the
one used when former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik was
nominated by George W. Bush to head up the Department of Homeland
Security: Shortly after being nominated, Kerik -- a longtime buddy and
business partner of former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani -- was forced to
withdraw his name after admitting to employing an illegal immigrant as a
nanny, and revelations surfaced about extramarital affairs and past
conflicts of interest.

So while Claude
Allen -- the Black conservative who previously held the job -- is waiting
for the legal system to deal with charges that he committed serial fraud
at several department stores in the Washington, D.C. area, Zinsmeister
will stroll on over to the White House from the American Enterprise
Institute (AEI), and assume the position.

Zinsmeister, 47, is
a most loyal Bushite. During his 12-year tenure as editor-in-chief of
AEI's American Enterprise magazine, the publication focused on a
host of cultural and social issues. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq he has
visited the country four times as an embedded journalist, written three
books defending the president's policy, and is writing and producing a
forthcoming PBS film called Warriors that profiles U.S. troops.

"Karl has broad
policy experience and a keen insight into many of the issues that face
America's families and entrepreneurs, including race, poverty, welfare and
education," Bush said in a statement on the appointment. "He is an
innovative thinker and an accomplished executive. He will lead my
domestic-policy team with energy and a fresh perspective."

Many of the early
news stories that reported on Zinsmeister's appointment mentioned his role
as AEI editor-in-chief, characterized him as a "scholar," and noted that
he'd written stories praising Wal-Mart's "efficiency," and "extolling" the
role religion plays in "bonding communities." In a story headlined "A
great pick by Bush," conservative columnist Mona Charen called him an
"intellectual powerhouse."

Conservatives
Pleased with the Appointment

Under the headline
"New White House Adviser Could be Refreshing 'Jolt'," Pete Yost, the
associate editor of Focus on the Family's (FOF) CitizenLink.org, wrote
that "Pro-family conservatives say Zinsmeister ... [was] a wise choice to
lead the White House shop that crafts policy on many issues that affect
the family."

Gary Bauer, the
former head of the Family Research Council who served as President
Reagan's domestic-policy adviser and currently runs an organization called
American Values, told CitizenLink that Zinsmeister will be "a positive
addition" to the White House.

"Karl is a very
bright man, an intellectual, a conservative in the very broad sense of
that word," Bauer said. "He's somebody that has, over the years, devoted a
lot of time and energy to writing and speaking about family-related
issues."

Bauer offered a
cautionary note, telling CitizenLink that Zinsmeister had not "devoted a
significant part of his energy" to the life issue.

"But in the broader
sense," he added, "Karl understands that the family is the bedrock of
American society, that marriage is the union of a man and a woman and the
importance of values to democratic capitalism. He has written and spoken
about those things extensively, and I think will be very sympathetic to
most of the items on the pro-family agenda."

Marvin Olasky,
editor of World Magazine, described Zinsmeister as a "pavement-pounder."

"Pavement-pounders
actually go out and walk down the hot pavement and the muddy and dirty
streets and see what's actually going on," he said. "Karl is of that type.
That's the way he's been as a journalist. Very much grounded. He's always
impressed me as a guy who is more interested in talking about reality than
in just spinning out theories."

"He impresses me as
a very honest and gutsy guy. He's very well-rooted." Olasky told
CitizenLink. "He certainly sees and values the importance of Christianity
in public life -- and to the best of my knowledge -- in his own life."

According to Tom
Hess, the editor of FOF's Citizen magazine, Zinsmeister has written
several pieces for the magazine, many of the recent ones have focused on
the situation in Iraq: In the June 2004 issue of the magazine Zinsmeister
wrote a piece called "Search for Citizens," which detailed the dishonesty
and corruption he found in Iraq:

"Several soldiers
involved in Iraq's civic reconstruction said some of the country's
problems remind them of the welfare culture the United States has
struggled with in its own inner cities--particularly the dependency
syndrome which leads people to automatically look to someone else to solve
their problems. But in Iraq, passivity and dependence appear not just in
pockets, but across broad swaths of society. As we passed through the
filthy yards and trash-strewn streets of Iraqi residential districts on
various errands, U.S. soldiers would often puzzle: "Why don't they at
least pick up their own garbage? That doesn't cost anything, and it would
improve their lives overnight."

Zinsmeister pointed
out that: "In the book Human Accomplishment, social scientist
Charles Murray came to a conclusion which, as a nonreligious man,
surprised him: After years of historical study, he discovered that the key
to the flowering of science, art, enlightened governance, and many other
good things in Europe, was the Christian religion's influence on
individuals and societies."

"The emphasis on
individual righteousness, personal character, and accountability before
God doesn't just give Christians ways to draw nearer to the divine. It
also provides them with valuable tools that help them live more decently
on earth. George Washington argued in his Farewell Address that "morality
is a necessary spring of popular government," and he advised Americans to
keep a tight grip on their Christian faith. As I observed failures of
citizenship in Iraq, I saw evidence that nations which lack Christianity's
ethical infrastructure face a harder climb to the good life.

In the March 2006
issue he penned a piece with a self-explanatory title, "Worth the
Sacrifice."

He hasn't hesitated
to criticize the press for its reporting of the war. According to Mona
Charen, in a 2004 report, Zinsmeister wrote: "This bias toward [assuming]
failure is fanned by what [U.S. News and World Report columnist]
Michael Barone calls the 'zero defect standard' of today's media. For
months, armchair journalists without the slightest understanding of what
real war is like have howled that this guerilla struggle hasn't been run
according to a tidy 'plan.' Why did we 'allow' the looting? How come
nobody anticipated the IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) threat? Is it
wrong for GIs to invade people's houses?...Wars never proceed according to
plan; they are always fought by the seat of one's pants, through constant
improvisation.

"On D-Day (one of
the most carefully 'planned' military events ever), 4,649 American
soldiers were killed within just a few hours -- many through what an
accusatory mind could characterize as 'screw-ups' (gliders and
paratroopers landing in the wrong places, amphibious and landing craft
unloading in water that was too deep, Air Force and Navy failures to
suppress German fire on the beaches)...By standards of war invoked by some
contemporary media observers, those landings could be viewed as traumatic
bungles."

Altering Quotes

While Zinsmeister
doesn't appear to have Claude Allen-like predilections, Think Progress
reported that he had "altered his own quotes and other text that appeared
in a published profile of him, originally written by the Syracuse New
Times but later amended and posted on the AEI website. The White House
claims that the alterations were 'corrections' due to 'misattributions' by
the reporter, an unlikely story given that Zinsmeister emailed the New
Times reporter after the interview to thank him for his 'fair and
thoughtful treatment.'" In his note, Zinsmeister wrote that "he really
appreciate[d] your professionalism and kindness. You wrote it straight up,
which is the best and hardest kind of journalism. Let me know when I can
next help out your journalism."

Josh Gerstein of the
New York Sun further investigated the story and spoke with the
story's author, Justin Park, and the paper's editor, Molly English. They
both "rejected" the White House's "explanation," Gerstein reported. "If
there's an inaccuracy, he should have called me or he should have called
Justin," English told Gerstein. According to Gerstein, English "said it
was unethical for...Zinsmeister to post an altered version of the story
without permission. 'It's reprehensible, frankly,' English said. 'Once
this is published, it's not his property. From that point in time, he
can't just pick and choose.'"

The New York Sun
reported that the original quote read: "People in Washington are morally
repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings." In the version posted on the
AEI web site, it read: "I learned in Washington that there is an 'overclass'
in this country stocked with cheating, shifty human beings that's just as
morally repugnant as our 'underclass.'"

On Tuesday, May 30,
Zinsmeister admitted that he altered the text of the New Times
piece. "Looking back, this is foolish," Zinsmeister told the Washington
Post. According to the newspaper, "Zinsmeister said he did it to
correct the record while protecting a young journalist who had made
mistakes."

According to the
Washington Post, Zinsmeister explained the changes "by saying he has
long studied issues of class and morality and he was confident he would
have used the kind of specific language in the quote on the institute site
rather than the more broad description in the original article."

He also acknowledged
other changes "to fix errors he believed the New Times reporter had
made because of misunderstandings or truncated notes -- taken in an
interview in a noisy restaurant."

"I should have
contacted the New Times to say that there were four errors in the
story and they should be retracted and corrected...At the time it seemed
innocent."

In a Zinsmeister
piece dealing with the treatment of captured "terrorists," he displayed
his kinder, gentler side: "Would you believe that the number of formal
U.S. investigations of how terror detainees are being treated recently
reached 189?...Of course we need to weed out cruel or out-of-control
guards, but the clear picture of the many commissions and blue-ribbon
investigations is that our detainment system is pretty tight and
self-regulating, that gentleness to the point of political correctness is
the norm, and the rogue actions are nearly always found out and punished,
usually quite severely."

Zinsmeister has also
worked as a legislative assistant to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, D-N.Y., and served on the advisory board for the Foundation for
Community and Faith-Centered Enterprise. In addition, he was on an
Education Department school-reform panel.

By praising
Wal-Mart, quoting Charles Murray, and altering his own quotes, Zinsmeister
may be a natural follow-up to the ethically-challenged Claude Allen. What
his appointment means for domestic policy remains to be seen.

Bill Berkowitz
is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His
WorkingForChange.com column Conservative Watch documents the
strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American
Right.